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Druid leveling guide [Archive]

Staff note: This guide is outdated but kept up for Archival purposes due to the positive feedback it received when it was relevant.

Introduction

This guide is for new druids starting out (for both people new to the game and for people starting their first druid alt!). It is specifically geared towards PvE leveling, with advice focused towards solo questing or 5-man dungeon leveling. My name is Lissanna and I've been writing druid leveling guides since 2006. I'm currently a druid blogger at Restokin.com. I'll be your guide through learning how to play the crazy druid class!

The first thing to understand is that feral cat is the most efficient talent tree for solo questing, especially now that you get cat form at level 8. Feral druids level in cat form, and attack their opponents up close in melee range using attacks with Energy as a resource and combo points for big finishing moves.

Balance druids can level solo perfectly fine. However, you will have to drink more often. This is still a good option if you enjoy being a caster, where you can root things away from you and hit them with damage spells using mana as your resource. At higher levels, balance druids get moonkin form to turn into a big owl-beast.

If you are leveling up in instances, you may want to be a tank (a feral druid focusing on bear form tanking), or a healer (a restoration druid focusing on using healing spells). Feral for tanking and resto for healing in instances as you level is a perfectly viable option. A feral bear spec will be fine for solo questing at lower levels, as well. However, a primary healer leveling as restoration will definitely need to pick up a second talent spec (balance makes the most obvious choice) at level 30 when you can get your dual-spec feature.

Feral Cat leveling

Congrats on reaching level 10! If you would like to be a druid that focuses on melee damage (cat) then a feral spec is the right one for you! Choose “feral” in the talent summary page.

Feral Leveling Talents

You get one talent point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80. From 81 to 85, you get one talent point every level. You will want to do your best to pick up talents that will enhance the damage abilities you currently use the most (ie. mangle), whenever possible.

Picking up very general talents like Primal Fury is a good thing even at low levels, since Mangle will generate combo points faster, allowing you to Ferocious Bite sooner. Other talents like Blood in the water are oriented more towards end-game raiding situations where it may take 10 or 15 minutes for the fight to end (rather than the 10 or 15 seconds it takes you to kill something at low levels).

After you put 31 talent points in the feral tree, you can pick up talent points from outside that tree. You would want to invest points in the restoration tree to get talents from there that buff your cat form damage.

Feral Leveling Abilities and Rotations

Cat form When you shift into cat form, you now do melee damage and you get a new set of abilities that you can only use in cat form. You can change the color of your cat form by visiting a barber shop in cities such as Orgrimar and Stormwind.

Some Key Feral abilitiesRake Does bleed damage over time and awards combo points.Claw does direct melee damage, awards combo points, only used until level 10.Ferocious Bite (Uses the combo points you generated from other abilities to do a big burst of damage to your target).Prowl (enemies can't see you, but you move slow). At level 22, this becomes more useful (when you start to get abilities that require you to prowl). Until then, just use it when you want to sneak past things.Mangle - when you choose feral as your talent specialization, you get this ability. It does direct damage, and replaces your claw. Also makes bleeds, like ravage, do more damage.Tiger's Fury (increases damage done by your cat form)Faerie Fire Feral - Decreases your target's armor. Can be used to hit things that are far away and make them come to you instead of charging up to them. Works in cat or bear.Shred requires you to be behind your target, but does a lot of damage when you use it. Use this instead of Mangle to generate combo points when running 5-man dungeons as DPS.

Cat rotations at various levelsNote that "just spam mangle" is a viable strategy for most of your time leveling up if you have a lot of heirloom items and things are dieing quickly.

Cat rotation at 8: Use rake, then claw until you have 4 or 5 combo points, and then use ferocious bite.

Cat rotation at 10: Getting mangle changes your rotation to: mangle until 5 combo points, then Ferocious bite (mangle-spam is basically going to be the fastest at low levels). Note that you should now take claw off your bar and replace it with Mangle.

Cat rotation 20-45: The long version = Prowl, feral charge cat to get to your target faster, then open from stealth with ravage, mangle until 5 combo points, Ferocious bite. If you want to make things come to you instead of going up to them, then use faerie fire and then use your mangle-spam rotation.Cat Rotation 46-53: Pounce-> Mangle-> Tiger's Fury-> Shred until they wake up. Then depending on the situation either Ferocious Bite for the kill or Mangle for more combo points then Ferocious Bite. (alternatively, you can keep doing the same mangle-spam).

5-man cat advice:1) When running instances with groups, Shred will hit harder than mangle-spam (once you learn shred). So, position yourself behind the target to spam shred to get combo points after your first mangle. You should also apply your bleeds to bosses that take longer to die (ie. rake & rip).

-Strength will show up mostly on accessories (ie. rings, cloaks, necks). Strength does still give attack power for cat & bear druids, but it is not as good as agility anymore – so take agility options when you can. Strength will be better than intellect for feral if your options just aren’t very good. Strength is also good for bears when you also pick up dodge or high levels of stamina on the item.

Other useful Feral stats:

- Critical strike rating (your spells have a chance to do double-damage) & haste rating (increases the speed of your energy regen) - Hit rating shows up on some low level items. This reduces the chance for you to miss with your attacks.

What NOT to wear as a feral druid: Avoid gear with caster stats (Intellect & Spirit), or tanking stats (dodge, parry, or block).

Feral Leveling Glyphs

While glyphs aren't necessarily required for leveling, they can help boost some of the abilities you use. The Mangle glyph is probably the most important one for leveling purposes. Most of the rest are more optional.

Balance Moonkin Leveling

Balance Leveling Talents

Congrats on reaching level 10! If you would like to be a druid that focuses on doing damage by casting from far away, choose “balance” on the talent summary page.

You get one talent point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80. From 81 to 85, you get one talent point every level. You will want to do your best to pick up talents that will enhance the damage abilities you currently use the most (ie. wrath & starfire), and then choose whatever else you need to get to move up the talent tree when you run out of helpful options along the way.

The first talent you want to invest in is Starlight Wrath, since it will make your main spells cast faster. While you are leveling, you want to choose talents that will increase your damage with Wrath, Starfire, & starsurge over other abilities. Also pick up talents that give you new abilities (like typhoon, moonkin form, etc).

Since you aren't using Damage Over Time spells (DOTs) much at low levels, you can wait a while before you get Genesis. The only talents you should really avoid while leveling are Fungal growth (you don't get mushrooms until way late), dreamstate (don't need the extra regen), and Lunar Shower (it's not very good right now, even at level 85).

Balance Abilities & rotation advice

Some Key balance AbilitiesWrath direct spell damage with a short cast timemoonfire instant cast spell that does damage over time (DOT)Entangling roots used to keep things from hitting you.Starfire (longer cast direct damage spell).Starsurge – a 2 second cast time spell that does a high amount of damage. You should try to cast this whenever it’s off cooldown. This counts as both arcane & nature damage, so both types of Eclipse buffs will increase the damage of starsurge.Insect swarm – Another Damage over Time effect (DOT), similar to moonfire. At lower levels, things should die fast enough that you won’t need to use your DOTs a whole lot. At higher levels (or in instances), when things are dieing slowly), then you want to put up DOTs so that they take more damage.Hurricane – An area of Effect spell. Use this on 3 or more targets. However, you probably will need to crowd control packs of mobs, and I had a hard time with trying to AOE kill things while I was solo.

Rotation 1 thru 9: Mostly spamming wrath as you level up to 10. Use moonfire early, so that the damage can tick over time. When you want to keep something off you, you can use roots to hold them in place. (So, a rotation at level 7 could be: roots, moonfire, and then use wrath until your target dies).

How Eclipse Works

Eclipse is likely the most difficult mechanic to learn as a moonkin. Eclipse puts a bar under your name-plate (if you are using the default User Interface, without any addons). When you cast Wrath, it pushes the bar towards 100. When it hits 100, you get a Lunar Eclipse, which gives you a buff that increases your arcane damage by 25% (ie. makes spells like moonfire & starfire do more damage). Then, you want to cast starfire while the Lunar Eclipse buff is active. Casting starfire will push your Eclipse bar further to the other side, where you will proc a Solar Eclipse. Solar Eclipse increases your nature damage by 25% (wrath & insect swarm) while that buff is active, so at that point, you would switch back to wrath.

basic single-target rotation after level 10 on quick fights would be to spam wrath until Eclipse, then spam starfire until Eclipse, rinse & repeat. Use starsurge when it comes off cooldown.

More advanced single-target rotation(on longer fights) after level 10 would be to: Use Roots to keep things from hitting you, Cast insect swarm and moonfire on your targets early in the fight. Use your starfire to get solar eclipse, use wrath to get lunar eclipse. Starsurge on cooldown.

Balance stats & gearing

Intellect is the primary stat for balance druids. It gives you more mana and makes your spells hit harder by giving you more spell power. More intellect makes you a smarter moonkin.

Other useful Balance stats:

- Spirit: Gives you more regen out of combat, and there is a talent in the balance tree that converts spirit into hit rating. You will end up with some spirit on your gear, which is okay – but you still value intellect a LOT more than you value spirit. - Critical strike rating: This stat will show up on your gear at some point, and this is a good stat for you. - Hit rating: You probably don’t need much of this on your gear since spirit now converts into hit rating for you, but you may have to pick up a little spirit and a little hit to make sure your spells don’t miss. - Haste rating: makes your spells cast faster. This is a great stat for moonkin. - Spell power is a stat that should mostly just show up on weapons, and this is good for you. There may also still be enchants with spell power on them.

What NOT to wear as a balance druid: Agility & strength are melee stats that are bad for caster druids. You would be better off wearing cloth int gear than wearing agility gear (especially before you learn the armor specialization at level 50). Also avoid tanking stats (dodge, parry, block).

Restoration Healing leveling

You should do most of your leveling in groups if you plan to level as a restoration healer (through the dungeon leveling system, PvP, or questing with friends). At level 30, you can buy a second talent spec (10 gold at a druid trainer for the dual spec feature), so I would recommend picking up a Balance spec as your second spec if you start out as restoration. A secondary DPS spec would be good for soloing. You can also start out as balance and then pick up a resto spec at level 40 as your secondary spec.

For resto druids, tree form is an ability you get pretty late in your leveling, and it is a cooldown, rather than a permanent form.

Restoration Leveling Talents

Level 10: Choose the restoration talent tree from the talent summary page. This gives you swiftmend, which is a healing spell where you get an instant burst of healing when you use it on someone with a rejuv or regrowth HOT on them.

You get one talent point at level 10 and then another point every odd level as you are leveling up to 80. From 81 to 85, you get one talent point every level. You will want to do your best to pick up talents that will enhance abilities you currently use the most, and then choose whatever else you need to get to move up the talent tree when you run out of helpful options along the way.

You will want to avoid picking up talents like Natural shapeshifter, master Shapeshifter, or Malfurion's gift when you are first leveling, since that set of talents isn't helpful until after you have tree form & lifebloom.

Early Level healing abilities:

Rejuvenation – Low mana cost, instant-cast Heal over Time (HOT) spell.Regrowth – High mana cost, Short cast time direct flash heal with a short lasting Heal over time (HOT) Spell.Nourish - Low mana cost, long cast time, direct heal. Heals for more when there is a HOT on the target.Swiftmend (from your talent specialization) - Instant direct heal. Requires a HOT to be on your target.

This is your healing toolset for many levels, so I expect that you will find uses for all four of these spells. Keep in mind that Nourish is better than Regrowth when you want to save mana. Rejuv & swiftmend are really great tools that start out great and stay great all the way to 85.

Resto Glyphs

Prime glyphs: Swiftmend (level 25) - prevents your rejuv or regrowth HOT from being consumed by swiftmend. So, you won't have to re-cast rejuvenation every time you use swiftmend. Other prime glyphs: Rejuvenation (get this 2nd), and Lifebloom (after level 64)

major glyphs: There aren't really any good ones for low-level resto druids. Glyph of rebirth (level 25) is helpful. The other resto major glyphs are mostly end-game oriented.

Feral Bear Tank Leveling

Tank leveling: It should be possible to solo as cat with my bear spec, but it will be hard to tank as a bear with the cat leveling spec. So, if you are tanking in dungeons, the tank talent set is going to be better for you. Low level tanks have a hard time holding threat on multiple targets, so make sure you tab-target and smack all the mobs in a pack to hold threat on them.

Bear Tanking Talents

When you create your bear build, You want to pick up talents that help your survivability in bear form (ie. thick hide, Natural reaction) that you should have skipped over when building a cat talent set. You will also want to AVOID talents that only help cat form(ie. predatory strikes, nurturing instincts, etc). Thus, having two talent specs for feral as you level up is helpful if you plan to both do Cat DPS and Bear Tanking (after you can learn a second talent spec at level 30 with the Dual Spec feature).

Bear Tanking Glyphs

Pick up the glyph of Maul (major) at level 25. You will need it to help you generate threat on multiple targets. Glyph of Mangle (Prime) at 25 and Challenging roar (minor) at 28 would be the other good ones to start with.

Comment by Jaspermarinka

Comment by alexg989

I suggest you might want to mention this spell. Especially for soloing boomkins.

Comment by strgic

Its a great guide for the ˇNewbornˇ druids that are starting the game.It helped me alot. Thanks lissanna. :)

Comment by Shigy

Thanks heaps for this guide...currently got a 24 worgan druid that I'm playing when the mood grabs me and its helped already :)

Comment by Katsuga

This guide is great! leveled my druid from 23 to 38 in one night thanks to your guide.

Comment by Sas148

Just a note: for Moonkin's it's probably best to point out that Haste is the #1 secondary stat for them, followed by mastery and lastly by Crit Rating.

Comment by PumpkinGuy13

I am a lvl 19 feral combat druid tauren and i would be a healer in dungeons to earn money faster, and lvling up faster. Plus, its more fun than doing those lame old quests all the time. so i would say that Dungeons in party groups, is the Best way to earn money, to level, and to have fun. I am a trial account and i dont need to upgrade it to have fun do i? yesterday i started of at lvl 14, lvld up once (not in dungeons), to 15, and then i went into the dungeons in groups for the first time. i leveled twice each time i was in a dungeon, and now i am a 19. and thats why the dungeons is the best, fastest, and most fun way to lvl, earn gold, and pass time. the character i did this with is Firefist. thats all from me, see ya in game! //EDIT// now lvl 20 and have three kodo's and i am now playing as a lvl 14 hunter troll (Beast Mastery) name of my troll account: Dissmount

Comment by lovefiend

Very nice.I play a resto druid and she is my favorite.

Comment by Fangsbared

Thanks a ton for the guide!

Striking a balance (no pun intended) between making a guide accessible to new players AND veterans trying something new is a fine line to walk, but you did it marvelously, Bravo, hope to do you and all the other druids proud someday!

Comment by Chewb

Great guide, is answered all my questions about druid leveling.

Comment by Warstalker13

Great guide very helpful for newbies and people looking to start there first druid like myself. Altho i havent decided what kind of druid im doin yet. Im open to suggestions!

Comment by baradiel

Very Good Job! Love all the pictures and stuff!

5/5

Comment by Allykitty

I love this guide! I will remember to use this in the future!

Comment by Revived

Really nice guide for ppl like me who wanna start a brand new life as drood.Thanks dude :D

Comment by magicsimon

Nice guide indeed, but I think you should maybe have taken a couple of addons into it aswell.People could then learn to use these along the way.Resto druids benefit really well from Healbot (addon), but its not everyone that actually knows how to use it well and they don't have the energy to learn using it.

As far as I know, there is an addon for every druid spec now. They are actually really helpfull both for leveling, instancing etz. :D

Restoration: Healbot

Tanking: Tauntmaster

Feral DPS: Droodfocus and TellMeWhen

Soul...

Comment by mca309

Very good guide! nice job.

Comment by harrie

ey good guide i am learnig er a lot ofthnx

Comment by GreatePier

Pretty good guide, but I don't quite understand why you say that low level tanks have a hard time holding threat against multiple targets?

You get Swipe (Bear) at L18 and at L25 you can Glyph Maul into a nice cleave. I'd say that makes Druids arguably the best AoE tanks in the low levels (considering Thunderclap has a 6sec CD vs 3sec on Swipe)To add to this, you can cast Thorns (learned at L5) pre-pull to make the mobs stick even faster to you

Comment by betuwefruit

for me as newbie this guide is very welcome. my character is a druid so I can learn much from this guide. thank you very much.

Comment by Roull15

Thats a very well-written guide! Was looking for one to give it to a new wow player! Thanks a lot, nice work

Comment by rizzen00111

I don't know how to thank you enough for making this guide! :D

Comment by datgrl

Great guide but I think it needs updating. I think the talent trees are different from when the guide was written and possibly the glyphs have changed. We are currently at 5.2 in Mists of Pandaria. The first comments are 9/18/11. When I click the link for the build, it doesnt' load correctly.

Comment by Marles

"(So, a rotation at level 7 could be: roots, moonfire, and then use wrath until your target dies)."

Not sure how old this guide is...but I just made a druid, am at level 8, and no roots. Also, so far, it is way easier to kill in cat or bear form. I hate melee, so hopefully that will change.

Will read on while I wait for the Teusday restart, but I am concerned that the info is not current. There is no "roots" at my level.